AVs: from the trough of disillusionment to the slope of enlightenment
You might say we were promised the moon when it comes to autonomous vehicles (AVs). In 2016, Elon Musk told us we’d have coast-to-coast self-driving cars in two years. That same year, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx predicted we’d have fully autonomous cars everywhere by 2021. Even the premier consulting firm McKinsey & Company supported the premise, estimating that, with increased utilization, an autonomous car would break that critical cost barrier for adoption of less than $1 a mile.